Jalopy Adds The-Artist-Formerly-Known-As-Yugoslavia

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Having failed to even make it out of Germany and then becoming trapped in a sausage shop (not a euphemism) I am probably not the best person to talk to about Jalopy [official site] adding new territories for Early Access players to explore. Yet here we are, about to talk about the appearance of the artist formerly known as Yugoslavia in Minskworks’ Eastern bloc car maintenance/road trip game.

First thought: I like how you get patch notes for this game that just say things like “Added Yugoslavia”, like it’s on a par with adding a car horn.

Second thought: Oooh – a car horn!

Third thought: Tell me more of this “Yugoslavia”…

“Take a drive along the coastline of what is now known as Croatia along winding roads, discover abandoned lighthouses, scavenge deserted beaches and build your bank balance trading a whole new raft of territory specific goods.”

I like knowing that there are lighthouses out there somewhere, even if the likelihood that I will see them outside of someone else’s stream is low!

The main game is still on the 0.5 update while bugs are squished in the newer patch so if you bought into early access* want 0.6 (and Yugoslavia) you’ll need to right click the game name in Steam, go to “Properties” then select “Public beta” from the list in the betas section of the menu that pops up.

0.6 also brings a few other nice updates. You can read the full list as it’s updated here, but it’s stuff like adding a home storage system and having components lose value as their condition deteriorates. I think nighttime is also supposed to be less dark. Typical light pollution, ruining the darkness…

They could totally add the tweaked Fiat 500 and 126’s that were produced here under license as a cheat code. Those damn things never broke down. They had, like, three moving parts, total, and as a result they didn’t need maintenance. Hell, they barely needed refueling.

:)

And the Croatian seaside is absolutely lovely. Hvar and Istra, in particular. Try the wine. Jalopy should totally incorporate the effects of driving a car with drum brakes and, ah, loose handling after a few glasses of Istran dry white.

Your car's cincilator has broken. Its existence was a surprise to you, and to every mechanic you've consulted so far. Its function is obscure, but at least one mechanic has hinted—by circumlocution and well-timed silence more than words—that it has something to do with time-travel and/or oil changes.

It's not even plugged into anything, it just squats malevolently atop a rat's nest of electrical cables and glows in tones of oily magenta. And yet its casing (an alloy of molybdenum and an unknown metal which, according to the factory data sheet, "fell to Earth, presumably from space") is cracked and the car will not start, emitting only a low throaty wail as you try to turn the key. You tried to remove it but there was just too much blood.

They aren't made anymore. The factory has gone bankrupt, been bombed by three separate countries (one and one half of which do not exist anymore), had its ruins and patents and things bought by a dubious American who claimed to be from a state he refused to name but which bordered New Mexico and Maine, and then went bankrupt again. The engineers who invented it have, variously, fled the country to grow cranberries in Yakutia, spontaneously combusted, or now drive a cab in Mogadishu.

Clearly, a lot of duct-tape and slivovitz is required. Not necessarily in that order.

The odd thing is that in the same city under the same name, there was a weapons factory whose products were notoriously indestructible. And it’s not just that, I still have home appliances from the SFRJ days which run faultlessly to this day. For some reason, when it comes to making rifles or stoves the material of choice was something forged in the heart of a star by at least one fully-accredited God, and when it came to making cars the material of choice had the tensile strength of damp tissue paper, and the durability of ice-shavings in a deep fryer.

I think that there were some affordability decrees from On High and so the whole thing was built to a budget to horrifying effect.